Christina England
The Covering Up of Autism
April 11, 2009

In the The London Daily Mail on Sunday, Laura Collins writes about how a specialist changes the diagnoses of a child from Autism because of pressure from the school chiefs. Sadly this is a fairly normal practice in the UK. Children's Autism is being covered up to save costs. Children with Autism need extra educational provision to have their needs met. For this to take place both the health authority and the LEA have to agree that the child is Autistic. However, if only one side say that a child is Autistic then funding is not agreed.

Professionals have been known to use any way they can to avoid diagnosing Autism. They will for example call milder cases of Autism PDD Pervasive Developmental Delay, OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, CD Conduct Disorder, DAMP Deficits in Attention, Motor control, and Perception and finally ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder as a way of getting around an Autistic Diagnoses. Very often children who are Autistic have threads of many disorders that interlink or interweave with each other and very few children tick all the boxes for an Autistic diagnoses. By only diagnosing one of these disorders in a child who is in fact Autistic and ignoring the Autism is a neat way of avoiding the route cause of their problems and of course without that crucial diagnoses, funding can be refused.

Children who have their needs ignored and misdiagnosed go on to be neglected by not only the health system but subsequently by the education system. Most children with Autism end up in a mainstream provision with inadequate help or support. Teachers have neither the understanding nor the training to deal with these children and the statementing process in place to protect these individuals fails because the child's correct needs have never been identified.

Whilst this undercover web of deceit is convenient for those who implement it, children are suffering the most horrendous abuse, often subject to severe bullying and ridicule by those who do not understand. Children do not fit into the neat tick box system our Health, Education and Care systems want them to. Children are individuals and the sooner our countries systems and Governments wise up to this fact the sooner children with Autism will be accepted.

This interweave was seen in the 1990's by Lisa Blakemore-Brown She calls this interweave of conditions a 'Tapestry' of disorders interwoven together to make up each unique child's profile. Lisa does not see children as tick boxes she sees them as the individuals they really are, she says in her book Rerweaving the Autistic Tapestry

"The way in which the unique person tapestry is constructed and unified into the wider social tapestry is still a beguiling mystery. Behaviors and interactions which can weave together into interwoven developmental disorders include autism, ADHD, language spectrum disorders including the dystonias and dyspraxias, Tourettes syndrome, Irlen syndrome and other behavioral presentations as well as some of the shared difficulties experienced by children with specific medical conditions including central nervous system disorders such as hydrocephalus. Clusters of behaviors can interweave together but if they are understood only as purely separate disorders without understanding the threads, the interweave and other factors which also impact, interventions may be of little use."

Except of course by professionals who are deliberately avoiding the diagnoses of Autism and who only chose to tick one box to avoid education, care and health costs.

It has been a recognized fact for many years that all the agencies work together. With more and more cases of Autism being diagnosed the Governments are getting very uneasy. Last week I wrote Autism, Cold Parents or Cold Society Where I showed an article stating that 1- 38 British boys are now Autistic according to a study in Cambridge University. That is a massive number and it is easy to see why there is a reluctance to diagnose Autism. If all the cases of Autism and Autistic Spectrum Disorders were to be accurately diagnosed the cost to this country and equally the USA would be catastrophic. So one has to wonder if this move to not tick all of the boxes and to conveniently miss a few out is a conscious and calculated decision.

The pivitol base of this rise in Autism is being blamed on the MMR. It is easy to see why, when we look at a non vaccinating community such as the Amish having only one diagnosed case of Autism out of 10,000. That is a very small number compared to the numbers being quoted in the Western World. According to Autism & Vaccines Around the World Vaccine Schedules, Autism Rates, and Under 5 Mortality Generation Rescue, Inc. April 2009

"The United States has the highest number of mandated vaccines for children under 5 in the world (36, double the Western world average of 18), the highest autism rate in the world (1 in 150 children, 10 times or more the rate of some other Western countries)."

Of course most of the blame of the Autism/MMR debate has been laid at Dr Andrew Wakefields door. He is an easy scapegoat and to ruin him would be beneficial to drug companies and the Governments they foster alliances with. Discrediting those who speak out, is to of course silence them forever or make them no longer credit worthy, this ensures that no one listens or believes anything they say. Dr Wakefield and many others have tried to speak out and had their careers ruined as a result.

Today we see that Childhood Diabetes has now been linked to the MMR as well as Autism. It is even listed on Merck's information leaflet. The problem with this however, is how many mothers actually ask to see an information leaflet before their child is vaccinated? Most mothers just trust the doctor or the baby clinic that the vaccine is the best for their child. However, just a cursory look at the list of adverse reactions admitted to by Merck on the website for the product MMR11 is really scary. The list includes Guilliane Barre Syndrome, Arthritis and Epilepsy.

Many health authorities are getting so desperate to vaccinate children they even take risks to ensure as many children are vaccinated as possible. In Chicago not only do they have the tooth fairy but they also have the Shot Fairy (Watch out Tinkerbell your days are numbered.) The 'Shot Fairy' comes along in the dead of night and vaccinates your little darlings while they sleep and are blissfully unaware. How dangerous is that? How can parents watch out for side effects in a sleeping child? What if the child vomits or has fit? Obviously this Health Authority is more worried about their vaccination targets than their patients. This of course could be seen by some experts to be extremely dangerous but the doctor in charge of this little enterprise seems not to worry because he thinks it is a wonderful idea.